Most cost effective way to use air travel

My wife and are visiting Australia in January 2023 from the UK. Not being able to travel non-stop we want to hop off at Singapore for 2/3 nights then continue to Brisbane, same on the return journey.
My question is should we buy return tickets to Singapore but book the return flight say 5 weeks later, and book a return flight from Singapore to Brisbane and arrive back in Singapore 2/3 days before our connection to the UK. or should we purchase individual direct flights - UK to Singapore, Singapore to Brisbane, Brisbane to Singapore and Singapore to UK? I realise individual direct flights may end up more expensive it is just the principle of the idea I am checking.

Thanks in anticipation.

Mike

What do you mean by "effective"? Least carbon? or Lowest Cost? or what are you actually seeking?

Ian

Generally the cheapest way I've found is to use the airline's own website a book a multi-city ticket to allow the stopover. They frequently seem to do this at the same price as a simple return ticket, as it's the same thing just with the stopover spending money in their country.

Hi, I am asking is what is my most cost effective way of buying air line tickets, is it feasible to to have return tickets from Singapore to Brisbane "nested" inside return tickets from UK to Singapore if that makes sense!

Mike

Quoting Mutley1896

Hi, I am asking is what is my most cost effective way of buying air line tickets, is it feasible to to have return tickets from Singapore to Brisbane "nested" inside return tickets from UK to Singapore if that makes sense!

What you said makes sense, and is feasible, but it's much more cost effective to do what Andy said: Seen from the airline's point of view, you basically book a return trip UK - Brisbane, with two stopovers in Singapore. You as a consumer do this by going to any airline (which is part of an alliance) serving all three airports, and looking for their "multi-city" form (e.g. for Singapore Air it's the blue "Multi city / Stopovers" link on the right just above the main booking form), and there entering 4 flights for 4 separate days, UK - Singapore, Singapore - Brisbane, Brisbane - Singapore and Singapore - UK. The price should turn out to be near-identical to booking a return trip UK - Brisbane with that same airline, so you get the stopovers for free.

[ Edit: Edited on 1 Mar 2023, 18:48 GMT by Sander ]

FWIW, the bad advice answer by notorioussea was generated by ChatGPT (you can check on https://www.zerogpt.com/ ) - I've reported the account.

Thank you for your valued comments.

Mie

I agree with Andy and Sander. Three airlines currently provide nonstop service to Singapore from London; and two of those fly nonstop to Brisbane from Singapore, according to Google Flights. Singapore Airlines has the most nonstop flights. Last December I used Singapore Airlines to fly nonstop from Kolkata to Singapore, spent two nights there, then traveled nonstop on the same airline to Brisbane. Both flights were on the same ticket. I used the convenient auto-checkin feature for both flights. https://www.singaporeair.com/en_UK/us/travel-info/check-in/auto-checkin/